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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Lesson, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Wealth, Poverty, and Inequality
Education and Anger
Race, Identity, and Social Division
Summary
Analysis
The narrator (whose name is later revealed to be Sylvia) recalls a period from her childhood when an older, college-educated woman moved into her neighborhood. Sylvia and her friend Sugar mock the woman because of her “nappy hair” and “proper speech.” Sylvia compares her hatred for the woman to her hatred of the alcoholics who get in the way and stink up the neighborhood. The woman, who has very dark skin, is the only one in the neighborhood without a first name; she’s only called Miss Moore.
Sylvia’s hatred of Miss Moore is rooted the way Mis Moore presents her racial identity. She uses “proper speech” (which presumably means a stereotypically white dialect rather than the African American Vernacular English that the other characters use) and has a college education. Because of these qualities, Sylvia views Miss Moore as fundamentally different from the other Black people in the neighborhood (including Sylvia herself). At the same time, Miss Moore’s natural hair—which Sylvia refers to as “nappy,” a derogatory term for tightly coiled hair—and dark skin are open displays of her Blackness. In Sylvia’s view, these traits don’t match up with the non-Black way that Miss Moore acts. Miss Moore’s formal name also makes her an outsider in the community, where everyone else goes by their first name (like Sylvia) or a nickname (like Sugar).
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Literary Devices
Miss Moore is constantly planning activities for the kids on the block. Sylvia’s cousin, Sugar, lives on the same block; their whole family moved north at the same time and lived together in an apartment before spreading out a bit. Although Sylvia finds Miss Moore’s activities boring, the children’s parents always insist that they go with Miss Moore, and that when they do, they dress formally like Miss Moore does. The other adults mock Miss Moore behind her back, but because she’s the only one in the neighborhood who’s college-educated, she’s able to convince the adults that it’s only right for her to educate the kids on the block.
Even though the other adults mock Miss Moore for her differences, they also seem to find something aspirational about her college education, which is why they force their kids to dress formally like she does and attend her lessons. This detail that Sylvia finds the lessons boring could suggest that she’s letting her resentment of Miss Moore stand in the way of learning new things. On another note, the fact that Sylvia’s family is from the South implies that before moving to New York City, they probably lived under Jim Crow (racial segregation laws in Southern states that were in place from the 1870s until 1965). Segregation was never legally mandated in Northern states like New York, which may be why Sylvia’s family chose to move there.
Themes
One hot summer day, Miss Moore gathers the neighborhood kids at the mailbox and starts to lecture them about arithmetic. Sylvia thinks that summer should be a break from school; she hates Miss Moore (who she thinks of as a “nappy-head bitch”) and her college degree. Sylvia and Sugar look “surly,” which Sylvia notes is a Miss Moore word. The other kids present don’t pay much attention to the lesson either. Flyboy, Big Butt, and Junebug are distracted by what everyone has brought for lunch, while Rosie Giraffe is waiting for someone—preferably Mercedes—to ask her if she’s from Georgia, so she has an excuse to beat them up.
Sylvia’s thought that Miss Moore is a “nappy-head bitch” (a racially charged insult) again implies that her hatred is rooted in the way Miss Moore presents her racial identity. It’s implied that Sylvia and the other children are Black, and so is Miss Moore. But Sylvia doesn’t approve of Miss Moore’s combination of stereotypically white traits (like “proper speech”) and stereotypically Black traits (like her natural hair), as this way of expressing racial identity doesn’t fit with Sylvia’s idea of how a Black woman should look and act. Though Sylvia resents Miss Moore, her narration also includes a word that she picked up from Miss Moore’s lessons, suggesting that Sylvia is learning something in spite of her anger. Meanwhile, Rosie Giraffe’s desire to fight Mercedes over whether or not she’s from Georgia suggests a conflict between Northern and Southern states, the implication being that Georgia (and the South in general) is an undesirable place to be from. This is perhaps because of the Jim Crow laws that were in effect around this time (the 1960s). It also hints at a tension between Mercedes and the rest of the group, as Rosie targets her specifically.
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Miss Moore asks the kids if they know what money is, which Sylvia finds patronizing. She tells Miss Moore that she would rather go Sunset Park to harass the West Indian kids and take their money than listen to this lecture. She is sure Miss Moore will bring that comment up in a future lesson on brotherhood. Then, Sylvia suggests that they go down to the subway to cool off (she and Sugar are also hoping to meet boys there). As the group begins to walk down the street, Miss Moore bores the kids by talking about poverty in their neighborhood and inequality in the U.S. Sylvia wants to object to the idea that they’re all poor, but she doesn’t get a chance before Miss Moore hails some cabs for the kids.
While Miss Moore clearly has important ideas to convey to the kids, they feel patronized by the way she begins her lesson. She seems to assume that because the children are from a poor neighborhood, they don’t understand what money is or why it’s important—when, in reality, it’s possible that their poverty makes them more aware of money than middle- or upper-class people. Although Sylvia claims to want to leave, her interest in debating Miss Moore’s ideas about poverty and inequality suggests that she is more invested in the lessons than she lets on. Her comment about West Indian kids also demonstrates that she’s aware of racial differences between people and of her own racial identity.
Themes
Literary Devices
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Miss Moore gives Sylvia five dollars for cab fare and tells her to figure out the tip for the driver. Sylvia, Sugar, Junebug, and Flyboy joke around in the car during the ride. At the same time, Sylvia is focused on trying to figure out how much money to give the driver. She suggests that they all jump out and go to a barbecue, but the other kids are too focused on talking about the cab’s meter and don’t want to go along with her plan. When the driver tells the kids they’ve gotten to their destination, Sylvia can’t figure out the tip and then decides not to give him one, because she needs the money more.
Sylvia’s focus on trying to calculate the tip is at odds with her earlier dismissive attitude toward Miss Moore’s arithmetic lesson; by placing Sylvia in a hands-on situation, Miss Moore forces her to engage with the problem. Yet Sylvia maintains her rebelliousness, as she tries to convince the other kids to escape and then pockets the money herself rather than figuring out the tip. In this way, Sylvia’s anger toward Miss Moore and dismissal of her lessons prevents her from learning new things—even something that she initially seems invested in. In addition, Sylvia’s decision that she needs the leftover money (presumably just a few dollars) hints that her family is struggling financially, contradicting her previous objections to Miss Moore labeling her as poor.
Themes
Sylvia realizes that they’re on Fifth Avenue, where everyone is dressed in expensive clothing. When she sees that one woman is wearing a fur coat in the summer, she thinks to herself that white people are crazy. Miss Moore tells the kids that this is their destination in a tone that sounds like she’s announcing their arrival at a museum. Sugar asks if she’s allowed to steal, which offends Miss Moore. Then, the group walks over to the windows of the nearby toy store to take a look.
Sylvia probably thinks the woman wearing a fur coat is crazy both because the coat signifies extreme wealth (most fur coats cost hundreds or thousands of dollars) and because wearing it in the heat is impractical. Sylvia associates this frivolousness and open display of wealth with whiteness, drawing a connection between the racial and economic differences she notices. This race and class divide is compounded by Miss Moore acting as if their arrival in Midtown Manhattan is like arriving at a museum, as this characterizes the wealthy white people in the area as exotic and alien in relation to Miss Moore and the children.
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Literary Devices
The kids, excited by the toys in the window, begins to point out things they want. Big Butt tells everyone he’s going to buy the microscope he sees in the window. He knows that it’s for looking at things, but when Miss Moore asks him to be more specific about what it’s for, he doesn’t have any idea. Miss Moore tells the kids about all the tiny things one can see through a microscope that are invisible to the naked eye. But when she says the word “naked,” the kids all start laughing.
Big Butt’s sudden interest in a microscope, an educational tool, is surprising given the way the kids have dismissed most of Miss Moore’s lessons. Yet her attempt to capitalize on that interest fails, as the kids find her formal word choice too entertaining to actually pay attention to what she has to say. In this way, Miss Moore’s “proper speech” alienates her from the children (who all speak in African American Vernacular English), making it harder for them to relate to her and absorb what she’s trying to teach them.
Themes
Miss Moore asks how much the microscope costs, and the kids see that it is $300. She asks Big Butt and Junebug how long they would need to save their allowances to be able to afford it. Sylvia and Sugar tell Miss Moore that it would take too long to save that much money, and that Big Butt and Junebug would outgrow the microscope by then. Miss Moore objects and starts to lecture them about how you can’t outgrow “learning instruments,” which annoys Sylvia and Sugar.
This passage introduces a contrast between the children (who come from a poor, predominately Black neighborhood) and the toy store (which serves wealthy customers in a predominately white area). Big Butt’s potential interest in science is crushed by the extreme cost of the microscope, which he would never be able to afford. This begins to hint that Miss Moore is trying to teach the kids a lesson about economic inequality—but she avoids discussing this outright, choosing instead to focus her lecture on the importance of “learning instruments.” In doing so, she again loses the kids’ attention, as they don’t care about what they see as her pointless obsession with education.
Themes
Rosie Giraffe finds a decorated block of glass that costs $480, and Sylvia is confused as to why it costs that much. Miss Moore explains that it’s a paperweight made of semi-precious stones, but the kids don’t know what a paperweight is. She tells them that it’s for keeping a desk tidy. Sylvia and Sugar curtsy at Mercedes, who they know likes to keep things neat. Miss Moore asks the kids if they have desks at home that they keep papers on, although she knows that most of them don’t. Flyboy says that he doesn’t even have a home, which is what he always tells white teachers at school so they’ll feel sorry for him and let him get away with things. Mercedes tells everyone that she has a desk, as well as scented stationery, which Rosie Giraffe mocks her for.
This section shows the economic disparity even within the group: although Miss Moore has suggested that they’re all from a poor neighborhood, Mercedes’s family is wealthier than the others. While most of the kids can’t even afford a desk for their home, Mercedes is wealthy enough to have a desk and fancy stationery. Rosie Giraffe’s mocking is similar to Sylvia’s reaction to Miss Moore: because of her relative wealth, Mercedes seems strange and doesn’t fit in with the rest of the kids, just as Miss Moore’s mannerisms and education level make her an outlier in the neighborhood.
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Flyboy interrupts the conversation to show everyone a sailboat, which he stares at as if it belongs to him. The kids crowd in the window to look at it and are amazed. They look at the price tag and read the cost aloud in unison: $1,195. Sylvia is shocked. She reads it again and gets angry, although she’s not sure why. Miss Moore stares at the kids, as if she’s waiting for something. Sylvia wonders why anyone would pay that much when you can build your own sailboat for just 50 cents.
The sailboat presents a stark contrast between the group of kids and the people who can afford to shop at this store, as Sylvia recalls her own boat that she made for only 50 cents. Sylvia is confronted with economic inequality seemingly for the first time, although she’s not yet able to articulate why the price of the boat is so frustrating to her. Miss Moore’s silence forces Sylvia and the other kids to work through this problem of inequality on their own.
Themes
Q.T. is particularly fascinated with the boat, although Sylvia thinks that he’s so little that even if he got the boat, someone would just take it from him. Rosie Giraffe thinks that it doesn’t make sense for parents to buy the boat when it would just break, and Sylvia says that it should last forever if it’s that expensive. Mercedes says her father would buy it for her if she asked, and Rosie Giraffe mocks her again. Q.T. observes that rich people must shop at this store. Sylvia asks Miss Moore how much a real boat costs in comparison, even though she usually never speaks to Miss Moore because she dislikes her so much. Miss Moore tells her to research it and tell the group later, which upsets Sylvia, who just wanted an answer to her question.
Once again, Mercedes makes her higher class status known, and Rosie Giraffe again mocks her for flaunting her family’s relative wealth. This interaction makes it clear that the children are becoming more aware of economic inequality and are beginning to feel that it is unjust for some people to be wealthy enough to shop at this toy store when most of them have so little. Meanwhile, Miss Moore’s response to Sylvia’s question about a real boat, while well-intentioned, frustrates Sylvia, who only wanted a simple answer and didn’t even want to speak to Miss Moore in the first place. Sylvia’s resentment of Miss Moore makes it impossible for her to see past the momentary frustration and take an interest in learning independently.
Themes
Miss Moore says that they should go into the store, but she doesn’t lead the way. Sylvia and Sugar reach the entrance, but they both hang back. Sylvia feels strange and ashamed, even though she doesn’t think she should feel that way. Sylvia is confused because she’s never been shy in the past. Then, Mercedes and the other kids push them in the door, and Mercedes walks past the other kids confidently. When the rest of the kids stumble into the store, it reminds Sylvia of sneaking into a Catholic church service with Sugar. They had originally planned on pulling a prank in the church, but Sylvia couldn’t go through with it once she saw how quiet and holy the place was. Sugar mocked her for her hesitation afterward.
The toy store’s association with wealth and whiteness frightens Sylvia and Sugar, although Sylvia again struggles to identify why. Her only other association with this feeling of shame is when she entered a Catholic church, another traditionally white space. This shame is also tied to class: two girls are contrasted by Mercedes, whose wealth allows her to enter the store with confidence while the rest of the kids struggle with whether or not they belong there.
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Literary Devices
The kids walk cautiously through the store, avoiding touching anything. Sylvia and Sugar are both mesmerized by the toys, the sailboat in particular. Sugar reaches out and touches the boat, which makes Sylvia jealous and angry. She asks Miss Moore why she brought them there, and Miss Moore asks if Sylvia is upset about something. As Miss Moore watches the children browse the store, Sylvia finds her smile condescending and is annoyed by how closely Miss Moore is watching her. Sylvia suggests that they leave.
The kids’ caution about touching any toys is the result of them feeling out of place because they’re poor and Black in a space that predominately caters to wealthy white people. Sylvia’s mix of jealousy and anger at Sugar touching the toy sailboat demonstrates her two reactions to the extravagant wealth of the toy store: she both admires it and is disturbed by it. Afterward, Miss Moore once again evades Sylvia’s question, but this time she is able to read Sylvia’s emotions and pushes her to think about them more deeply.
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On the ride home, Sylvia sits in thought, remembering a toy clown from the store that does tricks and cost $35. She imagines how ridiculous it would be to ask her mother to spend that much on a toy clown. Sylvia thinks about all the things that much money could pay for in her family: new beds, a trip to the country to visit Granddaddy Nelson, rent, and more. She can’t believe that people exist who would spend so much money on toys, and she wonders why she and her friends and family can’t make money like that.
At last, Sylvia’s introspection allows her to figure out the source of the anger she felt in the toy store. Her realization about the inequality she has witnessed explains her previous frustration, as she begins to truly grasp the stark differences between her family and community and the people who shop at the toy store. In recognizing this unfairness, she begins to understand Miss Moore’s lessons and redirect her anger away from Miss Moore and onto societal injustice.
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Sylvia recalls Miss Moore saying that “where we are is who we are,” but that it doesn’t have to be that way. Thinking about Miss Moore suggesting that “poor people have to wake up and demand their share of the pie” makes Sylvia angry again, and she remembers that she still has the money she saved from the taxi.
In this section, Sylvia makes the connection between Miss Moore’s ideas and her own thoughts about wealth inequality. The idea the Miss Moore (whom Sylvia still views as strange and alien) might have been right frustrates her, likely because it makes her feel ignorant. Sylvia also recalls Miss Moore’s suggestion that “poor people have to […] demand their share of the pie,” meaning that poor people shouldn’t accept the injustice that effects them and should demand better resources and opportunities. In remembering the leftover money from the cab fare, Sylvia seems to be reassuring herself that she isn’t actually poor, and that she’s smarter than Miss Moore. But although a few dollars seems like a lot of money to Sylvia, this sum is miniscule compared to what the wealthy customers at the toy store must have, which makes it clear that Sylvia is poor by comparison. The idea that the poor need to demand their fair share also recalls the moment when Sylvia decided to keep the money in the first place, deciding that she needed it more than the taxi driver.
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Literary Devices
Miss Moore gathers the kids in front of the mailbox again. Sylvia feels like it’s been years since they were last there, and she’s exhausted from thinking about everything from the day. Instead of lecturing, Miss Moore asks what the kids thought of FAO Schwarz, the toy shop they just visited. Rosie Giraffe mumbles that white people are crazy. Mercedes says she wants to go there with her birthday money, and the other kids all shove her. Sugar tells Miss Moore that she thinks the sailboat costs more than all of the kids in their group spend on food in a year, which excites Miss Moore. Sylvia is annoyed and stands on Sugar’s foot to try to get her to stop talking.
The main characters’ encounter with white people was alien and bizarre to them. Even though there is no official racial segregation in New York City, then, race clearly divides people from one another, creating the sense that places like FAO Schwarz are implicitly white spaces despite allowing people of any race to shop there. On another note, Sugar takes another opportunity to act independently of Sylvia. In telling the group her thoughts on the inequality she witnessed, she demonstrates the effectiveness of Miss Moore’s teaching style, as Sugar has been able to come to these conclusions on her own. Sylvia’s frustration with Sugar shows that even though she seems to have learned something from the day too—indeed, what Sugar says echoes Sylvia’s own thoughts during the ride home—she still doesn’t want to give Miss Moore the satisfaction of knowing that.
Themes
Miss Moore asks Sugar to think about what this difference in wealth says about the society they live in. Sugar pushes Sylvia off and says that she thinks that the U.S. isn’t much of a democracy, given that not everyone has equal opportunities to earn money. Miss Moore is ecstatic over this response, while Sylvia feels betrayed. Sylvia stands on Sugar’s foot again to make her stop talking. Miss Moore, looking at Sylvia, asks if anyone else learned something. Sylvia begins to feel something that she can’t explain and walks away.
Sugar clearly identifies the lesson Miss Moore has been trying to teach the kids about economic inequality in the U.S. (which, as Rosie Giraffe alluded to in the previous section, is also tied to racial inequality). Although Sylvia tries to silence Sugar, the fact that she feels an unfamiliar emotion rather than anger implies that she knows Sugar is right and that Miss Moore’s lesson was worthwhile. Rather than lashing out angrily, Sylvia chooses to walk away, presumably to think things through on her own. This marks an important shift in Sylvia’s character: instead of blaming Miss Moore for her confusion and anger, she’s turning inward and trying to get a better handle on her emotions.
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When Sugar runs to catch up with Sylvia, Sylvia brushes her off. Sugar suggests they race to get ice cream with the four dollars leftover from what Miss Moore gave Sylvia, but Sylvia lets Sugar run ahead. She decides she needs to take some time to think over everything that’s happened. She doesn’t care if Sugar runs fast, because no one is going to beat Sylvia at anything.
This final section demonstrates how much Sylvia has changed in the course of a single day. She now blows off Sugar, whom she was once attached to at the hip, and rather than use the leftover money to buy junk food, Sylvia decides to go off alone to think about what she has learned. Whereas earlier, Sylvia probably would have joined Sugar in spending the money frivolously, it appears to hold a deeper significance for her now. She doesn’t want to spend the money impulsively, and it seems like she can no longer shield herself from her complicated feelings about Miss Moore’s lesson. Indeed, Sylvia’s attitude that no one is going to beat her at anything suggests that she has taken Sugar’s thoughts about systemic economic inequality to heart, and that she’s determined to not let anyone keep her in poverty. It also suggests that although she still remains defiant and independent, her anger will now be directed toward the injustice she has come to recognize rather than toward Miss Moore.
Themes
